01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  The roof of the tower was no more than ten feet square, and just a little higher than the walls surrounding it; they were no more than twenty yards long - the place was less a fort than a toy castle. From the tower roof I could see Jallalabad, a mile away, apparently unchanged, except that the Afghan lines seemed to be closer. On our own front they were certainly nearer than they had been, and Hudson hustled me quickly under cover before the Afghans could get a bead on us.

  We were watching them, a great crowd of horsemen and hillmen on foot, milling about out of musket shot, when Hudson pointed out to me a couple of cannon that had been rolled up on their right flank.

  They had been there since dawn, he said, and he expected they would start up as soon as powder and shot had been assembled. We were just speculating when this might be - or rather, Hudson was, for I wasn't talking to him - when there was a great roar from the horsemen, and they started to roll forward towards our fort. Hudson thrust me down the ladder, across the yard, and up to the parapet; a musket was shoved into my hands, and I was staring through an embrasure at the whole mob surging at us. I saw then that the ground outside the walls was thick with dead; before the gate they were piled up like fish on a slab.

  The sight was sickening, no doubt, but not so sickening as the spectacle of those devils whooping in towards the fort. I reckoned there were about forty of them, with footmen trailing along behind, all waving their knives and yelling. Hudson shouted to hold fire, and the sepoys behaved as though they'd been through this before - as they had. When the chargers were within fifty yards, and not showing any great enthusiasm, it seemed to me, Hudson bawled "Fire!"; the volley crashed out, and about four went down, which was good shooting. At this they wavered, but still came on, and the sepoys grabbed up their spare muskets, rolling their eyes at Hudson. He roars "Fire!" again, and another half dozen were toppled, at which the whole lot sheered off.

  "There they go!" yells Hudson. "Reload, handily now! By God,"

  says he, "if they had the bottom for one good charge they could bowl us over like ninepins!"

  This had occurred to me. There were hundreds of Afghans out yonder, and barely twenty men in the fort; with a determined rush they could have carried the walls, and once inside they would have chewed us up in five minutes. But I gathered that this had been their style all along - half-hearted charges that had been beaten off, and only one or two that had reached the fort itself. They had lost heavily; I believe that they didn't much care about our little place, really, but would rather have been with their friends attacking Jallalabad, where the loot was. Sensible fellows.

  But it was not going to last; I could see that. For all that our casualties had not been heavy, the sepoys were about done; there was only a little flour left for food, and barely a pannikin of water a man in the big butt down by the gate; Hudson watched it like a hawk.

  There were three more charges that day, or maybe four, and none more successful than the first. We banged away and they cleared out, and my mind began to go dizzy again. I slumped beside my embrasure, with a poshteen draped over me to try to keep off the hellish heat; flies buzzed everywhere, and the sepoy on my right moaning to himself incessantly. By night it was as bad; the cold came, so bitter that I sobbed to myself at the pain of it; there was a huge moon, lighting everything in brilliant silver, but even when it set the dark wasn't sufficient to enable the Afghans to creep up on us, thank God. There were a few alarms and shots, but that was all. Dawn came, and the snipers began to crack away at us; we kept down beneath the parapet, and the shots chipped flakes off the tower behind us.

  I must have been dozing, for I was shaken awake by an almighty crash and a thunderous explosion; there was a great cloud of dust swirling about, and as it cleared I saw that a corner of the tower had gone, and a heap of rubble was lying in the courtyard.

  "The cannon!" shouts Hudson. "They're using the cannon!"

  Out across the plain, there it was, sure enough - one of their big guns, directed at the fort, with a mob of Afghans jostling round it. Five minutes it took them to reload, and then the place shook as if an earthquake had hit it, and there was a gaping hole in the wall beside the gate. The sepoys began to wail, and Hudson roared at them to stand fast; there was another terrific crash, and then another; the air was full of flying dust and stones; a section of the parapet along from me gave way, and a screaming sepoy went down with it. I launched myself for the ladder, slipped, and rolled off into the debris, and something must have struck my head, for the next thing I knew I was standing up, not knowing where I was, looking at a ruined wall beyond which there was an empty plain with figures running towards me.

  They were a long way away, and it took me a moment to realise that they were Afghans; they were charging, sure enough, and then I heard a musket crack, and there at the ruined wall was Hudson, fumbling with a ramrod and swearing, the side of his face caked with blood. He saw me, and bawled:

  "Come on! Come on! Lend a hand, man!"

  I walked towards him, my feet weighing a ton apiece; a red-coated figure was moving in the shadow of the wall, beside the gate; it was one of the sepoys. Curiously, the wall had been shot in on either side, but the gate was still standing, with the flag trailing at its staff on top, and the cords hanging down. As the shrieks of the Ghazis drew nearer, a thought entered my head, and I stumbled over towards the gate and laid hold of the cords.

  "Give in," I said, and tugged at the cords. "Give in, and make 'em stop!" I pulled at the cords again, and then there was another appalling crash, the gates opened as though a giant hand had whirled them inwards, the arch above them fell, and the flagstaff with it; the choking dust swirled up, and I blundered through it, my hands out to grab the colours that were now within reach.

  I knew quite clearly what I wanted to do; I would gather up the flag and surrender it to the Afghans, and then they would let us alone; Hudson, even in that hellish din and horror, must have guessed somehow what was in my mind, for I saw him crawling towards the colours, too. Or perhaps he was trying to save them, I don't know. But he didn't manage it; another round shot ploughed into the rubble before me, and the dirty, blue-clad figure was suddenly swept away like a rag doll into an engulfing cloud of dust and masonry. I staggered forward over the stones, touched the flagstaff and fell on my knees; the cloth of the flag was within reach, and I caught hold of it and pulled it up from the rubbish. From somewhere there came a volley of musketry, and I thought, well, this is the finish, and not half as bad as I thought it would be, but bad enough for all that, and God, I don't want to die yet.

  There was a thunder like a waterfall, and things were falling on me; a horrible pain went through my right leg, and I heard the shriek of a Ghazi almost in my car. I was lying face down, clutching at the flag, mumbling, "Here, take the bloody thing; I don't want it. Please take it; I give in." The musketry crashed again, the roaring noise grew louder, and then sight and hearing died.

  There are a few wakenings in your life that you would wish to last forever, they are so blissful. Too often you wake in a bewilderment, and then remember the bad news you went to sleep on, but now and then you open your eyes in the knowledge that all is well and safe and right, and there is nothing to do but lie there with eyes gently shut, enjoying every delicious moment.

  I knew it was all fine when I felt the touch of sheets beneath my chin, and a soft pillow beneath my head. I was in a British bed, somewhere, and the rustling sound above me was a punkah fan. Even when I moved, and a sudden anguish stabbed through my right leg, I wasn't dismayed, for I guessed at once that it was only broken, and there was still a foot to waggle at the end of it.

  How I had got there I didn't care. Obviously I had been rescued at the last minute from the fort, wounded but otherwise whole, and brought to safety. Far away I could hear the tiny popping of muskets, but here there was peace, and I lay marvelling at my own luck, revelling in my present situation, and not even bothering to open my eyes, I was so contented.

  When I did, it
was to find myself in a pleasant, whitewashed room, with the sun slanting through wooden shutters, and a punkah wallah dozing against the wall, automatically twitching the string of his big fan. I turned my head, and found it was heavily bandaged; I was conscious that it throbbed at the back, but even that didn't discourage me. I had got clear away, from pursuing Afghans and relentless enemies and beastly-minded women and idiot commanders -

  I was snug in bed, and anyone who expected any more from Flashy -

  well, let him wish he might get it!

  I stirred again, and my leg hurt, and I swore, at which the punkah wallah jumps up, squeaking, and ran from the room crying that I was awake. Presently there was a bustling, and in came a little spectacled man with a bald head and a large canvas jacket, followed by two or three Indian attendants.

  "Awake at last!" says he. "Well, well, this is gratifying. Don't move, sir. Still, still. You've a broken leg here and a broken head there, let's have peace between 'em, what?" He beamed at me, took my pulse, looked at my tongue, told me his name was Bucket, pulled his nose, and said I was very well, considering. "Fractured femur, sir - thigh bone; nasty, but uncomplicated. Few months and you'll be bounding over the jumps again. But not yet - no; had a nasty time of it, eh? Ugly cuts about your back - ne'er mind, we'll hear about that later. Now Abdul," says he, "run and tell Major Havelock the patient's awake, juldi jao. Pray don't move, sir. What's that? - yes, a little drink. Better?

  Head still, that's right - nothing to do for the present but lie properly still."

  He prattled on, but I wasn't heeding him. Oddly enough, it was the sight of the blue coat beneath the canvas jacket that put me in mind of Hudson - what had become of him? My last recollection was of seeing him hit and probably killed. But was he dead? He had better be, for my sake - for the memory of our latter relations was all too vivid in my mind, and it suddenly rushed in on me that if Hudson was alive, and talked, I was done for. He could swear to my cowardice, if he wanted to - would he dare? Would he be believed? He could prove nothing, but if he was known as a steady man - and I was sure he would be - he might well be listened to. It would mean my ruin, my disgrace - and while I hadn't cared a button for these things when I believed death was closing in on me and everyone else in that fort, well, I cared most damnably for them now that I was safe again.

  Oh, God, says I to myself, let him be dead; the sepoys, if any survived, don't know, and wouldn't talk if they did, or be believed. But Hudson - he must be dead!

  Charitable thoughts, you'll say. Aye, it's a hard world, and while bastards like Hudson have their uses, they can be most inconvenient, too. I wanted him to be dead, then, as much as I ever wanted anything.

  My suspense must have been written on my face, for the little doctor began to babble soothingly to me, and then the door opened and in walked Sale, his big, kind, stupid face all beaming as red as his coat, and behind him a tall, flinty-faced, pulpit-looking man; there were others peeping round the lintel as Sale strode forward and plumped down into a chair beside the bed, leaning forward to take my hand in his own. He held it gently in his big paw and gazed at me like a cow in milk.

  "My boy!" says he, almost in a whisper. "My brave boy!"

  Hullo, thinks I, this don't sound too bad at all. But I had to find out, and quickly.

  "Sir," says I - and to my astonishment my voice came out in a hoarse quaver, it had been so long unused, I suppose - "sir, how is Sergeant Hudson?"

  Sale gave a grunt as though he had been kicked, bowed his head, and then looked at the doctor and the gravedigger fellow with him.

  They both looked damned solemn.

  "His first words," says the little doctor, hauling out a handkerchief and snorting into it.

  Sale shook his head sadly, and looked back at me.

  "My boy," says he, "it grieves me deeply to tell you that your comrade - Sergeant Hudson - is dead. He did not survive the last onslaught on Piper's Fort." He paused, staring at me compassionately, and then says: "He died -like a true soldier."

  "'And Nicanor lay dead in his harness'," says the gravedigger chap, taking a look at the ceiling. "He died in the fullness of his duty, and was not found wanting."

  "Thank God," says I. "God help him, I mean - God rest him, that is." Luckily my voice was so weak that they couldn't hear more than a mumble. I looked downcast, and Sale squeezed my hand.

  "I think I know," says he, "what his comradeship must have meant to you. We understand, you see, that you must have come together from the ruins of General Elphinstone's army, and we can guess at the hardships - oh, my boy, they are written all too plainly on your body - that you must have endured together. I would have spared you this news until you were stronger ..." He made a gesture and brushed his eye.

  "No, sir," says I, speaking a little stronger, "I wanted to know now."

  "It is what I would have expected of you," says he, wringing my hand. "My boy, what can I say? It is a soldier's lot. We must console ourselves with the thought that we would as gladly sacrifice ourselves for our comrades as they do for us. And we do not forget them."

  '"Non omnis moriar'," says the gravedigger. "Such men do not wholly die."

  "Amen," says the little doctor, sniffing. Really, all they needed was an organ and a church choir.

  "But we must not disturb you too soon," says Sale. "You need rest." He got up. "Take it in the knowledge that your troubles are over, and that you have done your duty as few men would have done it. Aye, or could have done it. I shall come again as soon as I may; in the meantime, let me say what I came to tell you: that I rejoice from my heart to see you so far recovered, for your delivery is the finest thing that has come to us in all this dark catalogue of disasters. God bless you, my boy. Come, gentlemen."

  He stumped out, with the others following; the gravedigger bowed solemnly and the little doctor ducked his head and shooed the nigger attendants before him. And I was left not only relieved but amazed by what Sale had said - oh, the everyday compliments of people like Elphy Bey are one thing, but this was Sale, after all, the renowned Fighting Bob, whose courage was a byword. And he had said my deliverance was "the finest thing", and that I had done my duty as few could have done it - why, he had talked as though I was a hero, to be reverenced with that astonishing pussy-footing worship which, for some reason, my century extended to its idols. They treated us (I can say "us") as though we were too delicate to handle normally, like old Chinese pots.

  Well, I had thought, when I woke up, that I was safe and in credit, but Sale's visit made me realise that there was more to it than I had imagined. I didn't find out what, though, until the following day, when Sale came back again with the gravedigger at his elbow - he was Major Havelock, by the way, a Bible-moth of the deepest dye, and a great name now.(22) Old Bob was in great spirits, and entertained me with the latest news, which was that Jallalabad was holding out splendidly, that a relief force under Pollock was on its way, and that it didn't matter anyway, because we had the measure of the Afghans and would probably sally out and break the siege whenever we felt like it.

  Havelock looked a bit sour at this; I gathered he didn't hold a high opinion of Sale - nobody did, apart from admiring his bravery - and was none too sure of his capabilities when it came to raising sieges.

  "And this," says Bob, beaming with enthusiasm, "this we owe to you. Aye, and to the gallant band who held that little fort against an army. My word, Havelock, did I not say to you at the time that there never was a grander thing? It may not pay for all, to be sure; the catastrophe of Afghanistan will call forth universal horror in England, but at least we have redeemed something. We hold Jallalabad-bad, and we'll drive this rabble of Akbar's from our gates -aye, and be back in Kabul before the year is out. And when we do -" and he swung round on me again "- it will be because a handful of sepoys, led by an English gentleman, defied a great army alone, and to the bitter end."

  He was so worked up by his own eloquence that he had to go into the corner and gulp for a little, while Ha
velock nodded solemnly, regarding me.

  "It had the flavour of heroism," says he, "and heaven knows there has been little enough of that to date. They will make much of it at home."

  Well, I'm not often at a nonplus (except when there is physical danger, of course), but this left me speechless. Heroism? Well, if they cared to think so, let 'em; I wouldn't contradict them - and it struck me that if I did, if I were idiot enough to let them know the truth, as I am writing it now, they would simply have thought me crazy as a result of my wounds. God alone knew what I was supposed to have done that was so brave, but doubtless I should learn in time. All I could see was that somehow appearances were heavily on my side - and who needs more than that? Give me the shadow every time, and you can keep the substance - it's a principle I've followed all my life, and it works if you know how to act on it.